Annie Rickard Former Posterscope Honcho 

Last week, at the FEPE International Congress, in Sorrento, Italy, 400 Out of Home International delegates met to discuss and gain a worldwide perspective on how Outdoor Advertising is developing.  Our Kym Frank, Geopath President, was there. (To give you perspective, the US Out of Home Conference held in Austin, Texas  in early May garnered well over 900 attendees).   What is FEPE? Read Here⇒More about FEPE.

It appears FEPE attendees are battling with some of the same issues we have here in America.

Comments shared by speakers included the all too often observation, ‘OOH must make planning and buying easier.’   God I have heard this for the last 40 years.  OOH Today believes its less an issue than the attention the discussion about it attracts. If buying were easier, it would not a panacea for success, which everyone infers, yet no one has said, though the amount of noise it receives suggests it’s our silver bullet.

Four years ago, WPP/ten avenue/Kinetic (same WPP family) a FEPE speaker, Rupert Day, described the biggest single concern stunting growth for OOH was the near impossibility of running a digital campaign on any number of competing “platforms”.   Our hero of this post, Annie Rickard, formally global president of Dentsu’s Posterscope, shared: “that’s (making buying easier) not a problem for Facebook and Google.”

 

FEPE president, Tom Goddard, also Chairman of London Based OOH Provider, Ocean Outdoor, observed that these same issues were raised at last year’s Congress in Stockholm but that little progress had been made. Goddard, has been FEPE President for over 3 years and chairman of Ocean Outdoor for the last 9 “years.

 

 

Annie Richard comments from the conference were reported in recent news article, from More About Advertising (MAA). Rickard knows the OOH business, perhaps more than anyone in the room.

Rickard said,  “now was the time to put collaboration ahead of competition.”

“OOH media owners compete furiously and each one wants a better platform. But that matters little to global advertisers and it’s an issue that a seemingly booming industry needs to address.”

Rickard also checked off on the challenges of connecting with advertising’s creative community, particular regarding digital.

Dialogue at the conference continued about OOH’s challenges.

Those challenges are:
Problems with automation/programmatic.
Too many automated solutions offerings.
Incompleteness of solution sets or lack of better, more complete platforms.
Failure to work closely with creative.
The lack of progress in correcting or providing solutions
OOH Owners working independently to create their own platforms.
A shortage of outstanding campaigns

Looks like the World OOH Industry is enduring many of the same issues as here, States side.

At the same time, a call for collaboration ⇐ (Click here for Fletcher’s call for Industry collaboration-24 minute video) made earlier in the month by our Nancy Fletcher, OAAA Chair and President, was repeated by others at FEPE Convention. (Nancy did not make the trip to Italy.)  The focus, that partnerships and collaboration will expedite the challenges mentioned above for processes and make it less costly.

There are a lot of dollars being poured into solutions and in the near future, it will provide ready and capable answers. Until challenges are sorted out, do not let the issues serve as barriers to success nor dismiss our Industry as less effective. Ultimately, we are still the same OOH locations with people passing by them.

Ultimately, we are still the same OOH locations with people passing by them.

Read the post from Steven Foster in the publication, More About Advertising (MAA).

Stephen Foster is a former editor of Marketing Week and London Evening Standard advertising columnist. He wrote City Republic for Brand Republic and is a partner in communications consultancy The Editorial Partnership.   See the full story in link below⇒

Global out of home industry must make planning and buying easier say industry leaders